It has been reported that consumer banks across the United States are continuing to make cuts to staffing levels and trim down branches in a bid to try and slash costs. A number of banks have revealed that they now have considerably fewer staff than twelve months ago and some officials believe that this trend will continue for a number of reasons, including the availability of enhanced technology that is able to replace the need for employees such as counter staff at branches or customer service advisors.

A number of tech advancements have had an effect on staff level requirements for consumer banks. It was recently announced that Chase would be upgrading all ATMs this year, which will enable customers to withdraw larger amounts from ATMS and to withdraw custom amounts rather than having to take money out in multiples of $20. This will further impact on the need for customers to go to the counter at their local branch. Apps and smartphone technology are also impacting on the need for as many tellers and customer service staff, with many consumers now benefitting from online banking and smart payment methods.

Major banks lead the way

Two major banks are leading the way at present when it comes to job cuts and trimming of operations, and this is the Bank of America and Citigroup. Between the two of them, these banks both cut employee numbers by at least 4 percent last year as well as reducing the number of branches. JPMorgan Chase has also reported that the number of employees it has is around 6,700 fewer than twelve months ago. Its branch numbers fell by more than 3 percent, with many of the cuts being made in areas such as customer service departments, investment banking, and consumer banking divisions.

The figures also showed that Bank of America now has 129 fewer financial centers in operation compared to a year ago while Citigroup has around 4 percent fewer branches compared to twelve months earlier. The cutbacks are not just a sign of our increasing move into the digital age according to experts. Banks are looking at various ways to try and reduce costs by as much as possible, which is naturally having an impact on staffing and branch numbers. In addition, some are said to be focusing their attention on other departments such as Citigroup, which has actually increased resources in its compliance departments.

States all over the country are attempting to introduce their own type of regulation pertaining to the payday loan industry. One of them is the state of Minnesota, which previously tried to regulate the bad credit loan industry but failed after intense lobbying efforts.

It has been reported that Minnesota legislators will introduce legislation in 2016 to curtail payday loan lending. However, many political observers and state officials say it won’t be as simple as just currying up enough votes.

This isn’t the first time that The Gopher State proposed legislation to curb payday loan establishments. In 2014, lawmakers put forward legislation that would limit the number of payday loans consumers can take out to just four and place a cap on interest rates. The bill’s supporters said the average annual interest rate on short-term personal loans for people with bad credit is 260 percent, while the average customer takes out about 10 loans per year.

Unfortunately for bill sponsors, there was immense lobbying initiatives. Payday America, the biggest bad credit loan lender in the state, spent more than a quarter of a million dollars to quash the bill. Payday America is one of the top six “Big Lenders” thanks to their physical store locations and abundance of eager affiliates that get compensated very well.

A specific proposal has yet to be created, but State Representative Joe Atkins noted that any new regulatory reforms wouldn’t “be a disaster.” At the same time, however, he concedes he doesn’t “want to put them out of business. I just want to put reasonable interest rates in place.”

Atkins, who was the sponsor of last year’s payday loan lending reform bill, explained that consumers have to take action, too. He argued that Minnesotans must look at alternatives prior to applying for a bad credit loan: ask for an advance on your paycheck from your employer, request a payment plan with a creditor or seek out aid from non-profit organizations.

In the meantime, Minnesota may look at how other neighboring states instituted reforms. By studying other states’ reforms to the payday loan niche, it could offer guidance for lawmakers to create the best balance: protection for consumers and allowing lenders to keep their doors open.

It won’t be too difficult to find out what states have done. In most cases, there have been three primary changes: a cap on interest rates, allowing consumers longer times to pay back the loans and limiting the number of payday loans consumers can take out.

Federal Consumer Finance Agency Taking Action

At the federal level, one agency is looking to impose extensive reforms on the bad credit loan business.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), led by Richard Cordray, submitted a proposal this past March that would cap interest rates, restrict lenders from accessing customers’ bank accounts to collect payment and reduce the amount of excessive fees.

“The proposals we are considering would require lenders to take steps to make sure consumers can pay back their loans,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray in a statement. “These common sense protections are aimed at ensuring that consumers have access to credit that helps, not harms them.”

Ostensibly, an overwhelming number of U.S. consumers are in favor of such regulation, says one survey.

Pew Charitable Trusts found that 75 percent of respondents agreed that payday lenders should be more regulated. Only 10 percent of survey participants maintained a positive opinion regarding payday loan providers.

The share price of Fiat Chrysler was up by 14% to a 6 month high of 8.70 Euros; it rose even higher to 9 Euros after it announced that the company planned to spinoff Ferrari into a separate company and issue a mandatory convertible bond. Ferrari also plans to compensate investors with higher yields due to issuing of convertible bonds.

This spin-off will allow Fiat Chrysler to cash in on the brand value of Ferrari and separate the luxury car models from the mass car producer company. The Company’s CEO in a statement said that it was imperative that FCA and Ferrari went their separate ways due to the merger of Fiat and Chrysler and its listing on New York Stock Exchange earlier this month.

Fiat Chrysler will be listing the Ferrari stock in both the U.S stock markets and the European stock markets. 10% of the entire shares of Ferrari will be sold to the general public while the rest of the shares will be distributed among the shareholders of Fiat Chrysler itself. This will allow Fiat to raise its capital level to allow it to support its expansion plan.

This expansion will allow the company to increase its profit levels by five times over the course of next five years. It seems that the directors of Fiat Chrysler have finally sorted out their capital worries by making a simple yet complicated decision – a decision which will increase the valuation of Fiat stock.

The performance of Fiat Chrysler in the competitive market has been far from what was expected. Having a net debt of around 11.4 Billion Dollars, it needed a strong financial performance to straighten out its balance sheet. However, the operating profit came out to be lower than it had projected while there was also an increase in the debts it was already carrying. With a weak future in both Europe and Latin America, it was quite necessary that Ferrari with an equity value of around 6 billion euros was made into a separate entity in order to protect and make use of its brand value that it had established over decades.

Ferrari happens to be the most valuable asset that Fiat Chrysler owns and using it to raise capital will also allow it to expand into Asia, which happens to be the weakest spot for Fiat Chrysler because it fails to outperform Japanese manufactures in the region. It is widely believed that Ferrari can stand as a sole entity and this is exactly what the directors of Fiat Chrysler are going to test in their efforts to bring about a change in their fortunes. Despite being a low volume producing brand, Ferrari has a lot of name and trust in the high-end market. The capital from its share sales will certainly be in billions because there will be many investors running after it. All in all it has to be seen whether the split will bring a positive influence or not.

Payday loans are banned strictly in the state of New York since they are found to be trapping consumers in on-going debt cycles. Since these collecting companies were collecting loans that were illegal in the first place, the state authorities took strong legal action against them. These five companies are not only banned from making any further collections in the state of New York but are also required to pay more than $300,000 in penalties and restitution.

One of the payday loan collecting companies that was banned allegedly made 8,550 negative credit reports for consumers to credit bureaus in an attempt to pressurize them to pay their loans as well as heavy interest. The company was required to reverse all these negative credit reports and was prohibited, along with all the other companies, from making any more collections for payday loans in New York. The state laws have also clearly specified that all other companies are prohibited to make any collections for payday loans in New York in the future.

Lawsuits against online payday lending companies were also filed by the state of New York including Western Sky (who has now stopped lending), WS Funding and Cash Call for charging interest rates on loans that were higher than the usury cap applicable in New York. Under the state laws, the non-bank lenders that are not licensed by the state can charge a maximum interest rate of 16%, while these payday lending companies typically charge an interest rate between 100% and 650% annually. These loans are usually collected on the next paycheck that the borrower receives so typically they have a time period of four weeks at most, which makes the exorbitant interest rates even more appalling.

The borrowers were also being urged to provide these companies with access to their bank accounts so that the payday lending firms can withdraw payments directly from their account on the next payday. Often, these companies would only deduct the interest fee, keeping the principal amount intact to roll it over and kept withdrawing payments from consumers’ bank accounts over several pay periods while the consumers thought their debt has been paid off already. These payday lenders are also accused of hurting the national economy by trapping individuals into deliberate debt traps and reducing their average household income.

While the state takes actions against the payday lending companies, it also promotes education among borrowers regarding payday loans, theirs consequences and the rights of consumers as borrowers. In states where payday lending is still legal, state-registered companies are the best option to borrow from. There is also many websites, middle men and affiliate companies like Landmark Cash that offer payday loans online. These websites match consumers with registered payday lenders who abide by the state lending laws. While the state tries to control the actions of these firms, the responsibility of making educated and wise decisions lies with the consumers themselves.

So the question now is will other states follow suit and begin to crack down on payday loans? How will this affect payday loan marketers that provide matching services and don’t directly fund the loans? These are questions that will most likely be played out and answered over the next several months.

You’ve gotta have it, that shiny new car. It beckons your name the moment you wrap your hands around the leather-bound steering wheel.

The sales guy really wants to put you in that car today!

So you negotiate, and you drive a hard bargain (you’ve done your homework after all – already knowing what the car is ‘really’ worth)!

The next thing you know you’re being escorted to the finance office. It’s in the back, with no windows.

You feel imprisoned – like all the joy just left the room.

The finance officer pulls your credit report and gives you the news – you can have the car!

For $600 / month! What!?

You didn’t even think about the monthly payment when you went car shopping.

Turns out your credit score is below 680 and, well, you’re a credit risk – so your interest rate is through the roof.

Oh, the banks will give you the loan, but at an interest rate of 19.9%!

You feel shattered, broken. You leave – without the car.

What is a Credit Score, who is FICO anyway, and why did he steal your dream away?

A credit score is the most valuable tool in your financial arsenal. The most commonly used one is called the FICO score, but there are other ‘types’ of credit scores out there. Did you know that some prospective employers now look at your credit score to determine your ‘employment worthiness’?

Your credit score is used for all of your financial needs: applying for a credit card, buying a car, buying or renting a home or apartment, getting varies types of bank loans, obtaining insurance (yes, car insurance companies even look at your credit score now to determine your level of risk to them), and as I already mentioned, prospective employers take a peek too.

As you see by looking at the pie chart above – you need credit to get credit. Seems like a crazy concept, doesn’t it?

Additionally, once you start your grown-up financial life (aka, receiving and paying bills, yes paying those bills), someone’s been watching the entire time. Call him FICO or Big Brother, call him whatever you want. But he knows.

Your credit score is a reflection of all of your financial decisions in adulthood.

So how do you get a credit score, fix a credit score, and maintain a good credit score?

If you have a job, then you need to get a credit card as soon as you can, one with a small amount of available credit. But you must use it wisely or it can destroy your financial worthiness by tempting you with designer clothes or lattes!

Never use a credit card to buy something you can’t afford. If you can’t pay it off in full each month, then your credit card will hurt you before it helps you.

Get credit

Pay all bills timely

Credit score goes up

Overextend your credit card by racking up expenditures you can’t pay in full each month (or in two to three months for unexpected legitimate expenses, like car repairs or medical expenses) and you risk dragging your credit score down.

Bygone are the days when people just needed one job to meet their personal and family expenses. In today’s world, earning from a single source of income is not only a high risk factor considering the lay offs every now and then, but also not a sufficient feature to meet your expenses. If you have to survive in these times, then finding multiple streams of income is the only solution.

Let we explore some of the best options available for anyone to start with a second income source;

Paid Surveys

Companies are actively looking people to get an opinion about their current and prospective products and even they are ready to pay you for this purpose. There are many websites out there, which offer handsome earnings by taking online surveys.

Ebay Store

If you have the goods, which you want to resell then opening a store at Ebay is worth considering. You can also open a store to resell other’s products and earn a commission on each sale. This is a very easy and helpful stream of income with promising results.

Website and Logo Designing

If you know the art of designing and have creativity and imagination then this is a high paying niche for you. Companies often acquire logo designs through freelance websites where anyone can contest for their designs. All you need is a sound grip on a vector software, such as Adobe Illustrator and Corel Draw. You may earn as much as 300$ on a single logo design. Similarly, designing a website is also worth considering as it offers huge payout, however it is more time consuming as compared to logo designing.

Blogging

A very competent internet niche where you may earn through advertisement and affiliate marketing through the contents you provide on your blog. If you know how to share your ideas and opinion in a casual and friendly way and are able to discuss issues in which people are mostly interested, then blogging alone can substitute your day job eventually.

Freelance Writer

Internet is in dearth of quality writers and companies are actively looking to hire freelance writers for writing blogs or articles for them. They may pay you as much as 5$ per article, provided you know the art of writing and have a sound grip on the grammatical and lexical aspects of the language.

Home Business

This is the idea about which a large majority keeps on daydreaming. It feels very cool to have your business in your home and get yourself free from the chains of employment. However, many home businesses fail in their initial months due to lack of homework, planning and capital. Although home businesses require very low capital to start with, however one should possess the expenses of the first six months in order to play on the safe side. A home business is less likely to produce higher profits in its initial period. You may decide about selling a product or offer services through your home business.

Virtual Assistant

A relatively new kind of online job in which you offer your services virtually to a real office or company and are paid on per hour basis. This is an exciting opportunity for those who look for a part time job and at the same time do not want to lose the comfort of their houses. All you need is a good system in your home with a fast internet connection.

Almost every single one of us is fighting with debts these days. There are only a few handfuls of people who have actually managed to get debt free so that they can start to save a little for the future. For those of us who haven’t been able to get debt free through our own financials, we try to do it through debt settlement. However, my question to you is this; do you really think debt settlement is a good idea?

Before we get into the discussion of whether or not debt settlement is the answers to your worries, let us look at what the term essentially means. To state simply, debt settlement is done by a settlement firm that helps you get rid of the debt that you are in. What these settlement companies do is to talk to your creditors, negotiate with them and make terms where the creditors agree to accept a small amount of what you own them.

Unfortunately, because nothing comes for free, the debt settlement firm will charge a monthly fee once you stop paying the creditors. This monthly charge will go on until you have paid almost the amount that you originally owed to the creditors.

So, coming back to the point, why isn’t it such a good idea to go to a debt settlement company? Well truth be told, the people who have experienced this say that it is better to pay off your own debt slowly and gradually instead of calling a firm to provide a loan for you. Here are the reasons why you should avoid debt settlement companies.

The settlement fee: As mentioned, the firm that is helping you out will charge a particular amount, and most of the time, this amount is very high. First of all you will need to pay an upfront fee which may be high and then they may also charge you with the percentage of your complete debt.

The company maybe a fraud: Yes, there is a lot of that going around as well. There are many firms who promise to get you debt free but only run away with your money once you have delivered the immediate cash that is required when hiring them. Other than that, there are also some that don’t have the experience and skill to deal with the creditors and so they too will make your money go to waste.

The Credit Score: Perhaps the one major thing you are going to be hurting when hiring a debt settlement firm is your credit score. Your credit score may already be bad because you haven’t been paying the debt for days, but it is not as bad as it will be when you hire a company. The primary reason behind this is because you haven’t paid the creditors the full amount and only a portion and this is what will get you into trouble.

The Time: Debt settlement takes time. You cannot expect the firm to take control within a month or two and make you debt free because there is no way they’ll be able to do that. The process for the procedure may take from anywhere to 1-2 years to complete.

So you see, there are many reasons why you should stop think if you really want a debt settlement firm to help you out with your debts. Instead, you could always just go for other options such as loans or borrowing from a friend or family.

Market volumes have been running dry since the 2009 economic collapse. Between the global deleveraging cycle, the shifting demographic preference for capital preservation, and the sheer uncertainty of the modern markets, personal investors need to be able to understand how it is that today’s volume levels are acting. Specifically, because of their sporadic nature, we need to be able to assess how it is that different kinds of purchasers will enter the market, and how their involvement will impact the movements of a given security. Most relevant to today’s commodity markets is then the corporate consumption driver of volume, and how it is that consolidation volume actually driving prices at irregular periods of time.

Corporate consolidation in the commodity producers industry has always been a major driver of returns, in the way that it provides an opportunity for larger companies to benefit from their advantages of scale, while smaller companies are finally able to cash in on the pricing discounts that plague their equity values. However, because of how difficult it is to predict exactly when a consolidation purchase will take place, investors tend to find themselves holding highly illiquid junior commodity producer equity positions for extended periods of time, waiting for a suitor to swoop in and gobble up their shares for an aggressive premium.

This means that the investor is subjecting themselves to a great deal of timing and liquidity risks. That being said, when looking at how it is that the sheer volume of a consolidation purchase exceeds that of a personal investor’s involvement, one needs to ask the question of how it is that the volume spike from an acquisition would average, and therefore demonstrate the true liquidity of the position over the long run.

By definition, an acquisition purchase requires that a consolidating company purchase a majority interest in the equity stake of the acquired security in question. Such a transaction will involve millions of shares, and even more dollars. While such a transaction will take place generally all at one point in time, it is important to notice how the legal rules of an acquisition will actually encourage a company to draw out their acquiring purchase over time, and ease into the position through carefully planned incremental purchases of approximate 5% per year.

This means that an acquiring company has an incentive to slowly buy up the price of a position before they make their full offer to purchase. In doing so, a personal investor gains the benefit of having their liquidity risk reduced by the purchasing company’s steady early demand. From there, after a period of even a few years, the offering company can step up and make a full purchase of the shares in question. While this transaction will no longer be as large as it could have been if the whole deal was done at once, it is important to note that the magnitude of the transaction will still be enough to drive up the value of the shares, and resolve the illiquidity of the position itself.

Upon averaging out the total volume of the acquisition over its full period, as well as the period over which the investor was holding their position, it become apparent how it is that an acquisition will actually improve the value of a junior commodities producer in two ways: firstly, it fills in the discount of the equity itself, and secondly, it will resolve the liquidity risks of the position, and therefore create value through the absolution of that risk.

One of the fundamental metrics that economists have been monitoring to track the recovery of the economy as a whole is referred to as the Velocity of Money. Referring to the rate at which transactions occur within a market, velocity represents how many times a given dollar will change hands over a set period. Ideally, an economy wants to have a high velocity of money, because it shows that there is a great deal of business being done, and therefore value being created. However, in today’s inflation-centric economies, it is important to understand how it is that governments can create artificial velocity. From there, we need to be able to track how it is that the real velocity of money is changing with respect to inflation, and how it is that monetary policies can actually hinder the true velocity of money by increasing its nominal amount.

Inflationary policies will fundamentally increase the velocity of money because of the way in which it increases the number of transactions that a given dollar needs to make to create the same amount of value that it did before. Additionally, because of the way in which the printed money is directed towards specific economic goals, the act of simply introducing the new funds to the economy will create additional transactions that increase the velocity of money metric right out the gate.

However, both of these increases in velocity are artificially, and distract economists from the fact that the actual velocity of money has not necessarily changed in terms of real transactions, held against a stable currency value. By therefore correcting for inflation, economists can see that inflation actually has a negative impact on the velocity of money because of the way in which the sheer volume of capital required to complete transactions will act as a hindrance to transactions.

Given the nature of the way in which the real velocity of money is observed in practical environments, it is perhaps more accurate the call the metric the Voltage of money, while inflation represents an increase to the Amperage of money. This is because of the way in which the Velocity metric demonstrates the effectiveness with which the economy itself is churning through capital. While the capacity of the economy itself represents the sheer volume of capital that it can handle at any given time (Amperage), the rate at which the money travels through the limited capacity is represented by Velocity.

However, similarly to the way in which high voltage will inherently encounter resistance if it is forced through a channel that does not have the capacity to support it, the real velocity of money will lag if it is too different from the nominal velocity, because of the way in which the economy its does not have the same capacity to churn through the same volume of dollars as the nominal amount requires. Essentially, this means that there is too much money in an economy for it to function as efficiently as it did before, and that the economy requires a greater amount of effort to move such great amounts of nominal value.

The end result is the conclusion that increasing the volume of nominal dollars in an economy will actually partially impede the ability of that economy to grow and recover, because of the greater effort required to churn through the nominal dollars.

In managing its debt load, analysts are looking at European policies as having three solutions available for managing its debt load. Firstly, there is the option to focus on policies that support the repayment of debt, which is certainly both the most effective and expensive solution to a debt. Alternatively, a country can default on their debt, which cripple’s their ability to borrow over the long term, while supporting their ability to continue operating on a current basis.

Lastly, and most interestingly, is the option for a country to execute a ‘synthetic default’, where they use inflationary means to create the means to pay off the obligations with money that is conjured from thin air. While such a policy is harmful to the overall economy itself (in that it greatly dilutes the general population’s purchasing capacity as an ‘inflation tax’), it does promote the ability of the government itself to repay its obligations, and therefore maintain its service level. In light of the recent compromises being made to support both the bail-out and maintenance of the Euro zone, personal investors need to be aware of how the preference for a synthetic default in the European Union impacts a portfolio.

Immediately upon introducing a formal policy that implies a synthetic default, inflation risks will increase for positions that are exposed to the Euro currency. This means that all fixed income positions will be less valuable, because they will provide less of a real return to investors, and dilute out the worth of distributions being made to investors. This means that the positions will lose market value, while maintaining their nominal long-term worth. The trick for personal investors is to then recognize how to mitigate the risks of inflation through currency measures.

The second major impact that a synthetic default has on a personal portfolio is related to the value of the supporting currency of the security. In this case, because of the way in which inflation will deteriorate the value of the Euro, as well as the worth of the fixed income returns of some securities being held, we are potentially having our positions eaten away at from two directions at once. However, this also provides us with an opportunity to mitigate the risks of inflation by increasing the sophistication of our exposed holdings into a two-part position.

When holding a Euro bond right now, a personal investor can protect a great deal of their position by simply hedging the currency value of their incomes in a way which supports the conversion rate of their incomes into their preferred currency. In doing so, an investor is protecting the real value of the distributions by ensuring that they maintain their nominal value.

From there, so long as the investor is purchasing the European debt as a foreign buyer, they are almost fully protecting the position against the inflationary risks of a synthetic default, and therefore maintaining an investment-grade bond position. So long as the default does not then progress to a real one from a synthetic one, the investor can maintain their original yield.